Think on Your Feet: Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Impromptu Communication Skills on the Job: Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Impromptu Communication Skills on the Job [PDF]

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PRAISE FOR JEN OLENICZAK BROWN AND



THINK ON YOUR FEET



“[Think on Your Feet] is a helpful maven’s guide ideal for anyone who views a podium with fear and trembling.” —Publishers Weekly



“Think improv is just for comedians? Think again! Improv is about knowing where you are in the moment and being able to pivot to find what works. Jen Brown’s book Think On Your Feet will help you and your team develop these skills to be successful in every business situation.” —Wendy Dailey, Talent Advisor at Sanford Health



“Before reading this book, I was never one to study or practice for anything, especially when it came to communicating. I just figured that because I have the gift of gab, no practice was necessary. Sheesh, was I wrong! After being in numerous situations where the spotlight came to me unexpectedly, I can appreciate this ‘bible’ on perfecting your impromptu speaking and communications skills. I’ve always been one who commanded attention with only my voice, but with Jen’s humorous yet intentional insight on how to maneuver in any situation, I can now command attention with intention!” —Maleeka T. Hollaway, founder of The Official Maleeka Group



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“Too often fear of saying the wrong thing holds us back from our achievements. This book provides the tools and mental hacks to help you communicate confidently. Jen Brown’s unique incorporation of improv frameworks and exercises are not only wholly effective, they’re wildly engaging. This is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their communication skills.” —Katie Kapler, CEO of CourseHorse



“Think on Your Feet is both super readable and relatable. It blends the best of a fun improv class with the career guidance books we devour because they set us straight. Jen’s account of how best to apply improv basics to work and life moments bring a fun perspective and approach to age-old concerns. I fully recommend this book to anyone hoping or plotting how to get ahead with the next phase of their lives. Improv or scripted, Jen’s explanations and samples of common professional moments make any scenario relatable, so that you’ll feel prepared and ready.” —Eileen Cannon, Senior Director, Content + Curriculum at PBS



“Jen Brown offers a refreshing new way of looking at human interactions and to ourselves. Everyone who aspires to become a more engaging and thoughtful communicator should follow Jen’s ideas to bring a bit of improv to their lives. A must-read for college students!” —Aída Martínez-Gómez, PhD, Coordinator, Department of Modern Languages and Literature at John Jay College of Criminal Justice



“Jen offers a way to break through one’s preconceived notions and learn how to ­really collaborate with other people. She teaches how the reality that is created by using improv techniques in our conversations is powerful and can help to manifest the change that each of us desires, in work and in life!” —Ashley Knight, Program Coordinator, HR at Wake Baptist Health



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“Through multiple real-life examples and suggested activities to guide the reader, Jen’s enthusiasm for applying lessons from improv to communication is very evident.” —Jill Schiefelbein, founder of The Dynamic Communicator



“Jen Brown not only makes improv accessible, she also weaves in lessons of empathy and strength. This is a read, learn, apply book. I’ve learned a new language that I already see sneaking into several conversations, and, more importantly, into my actions.” —Travis Sheridan, Global Director at Venture Café



“Think On Your Feet is a self-improvement book that teaches you how to apply the brilliant lessons of improv to your daily life. As an HR professional, I know a thing or two about sensitive conversations and this book is filled with advice on how to master even the most difficult of conversations. Jen offers a wealth of great tips, fun tricks, and exercises and shows you how to work them into your day-to-day. ‘Yes, and’ I’ll be recommending this book to my whole team.” —Jessica DeGrado, HR People Partner at Atlassian



“Plenty of books tell you how to do planned comms work. This is the only one that explains the benefits of sometimes thinking on your feet and doing less planning, not more.” —Sree Sreenivasa, Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business and Loeb visiting professor at Stony Brook University



“I have seen Jen think on her feet and deftly respond to a wide variety of situations. Her background in improv, teaching and facilitating, make her eminently qualified to offer tips to make us all more adept at responding to the unexpected.” —Sharon Vatsky, Director of Education, School and Family Programs, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum



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listening, it was a true statement. She hit her personal sales goal and was excited about it. Being specific and getting to the point are great ways to balance the worry we might have about bragging about our accomplishments. Remove the qualifiers and focus on the facts. This includes removing words like very, too, so and anything that adds an amount to what you’re going to talk about. Keeping the emphasis on your accomplishment, you should also remove things like, “Oh, it was easy,” or “It’s r­ eally no big deal.” Stick to the facts of what you’re proud of.



TRY THIS



Go back to that accomplishment you thought of earlier and say it out loud, without any qualifiers. Remember, qualifiers add some kind of amount or emotion to the accomplishment. How did it feel? This helps you get comfortable talking about your accomplish-



ments. We often know what we’re proud of and can’t express it well. This activity starts to build comfort in talking about accomplishments.



Celebrate Your Accomplishments and Your Coworkers Another way to talk about accomplishments in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you’re bragging is the magic improv rule yet again: “Yes, and.” The idea behind “Yes, and” is present here, rather than the actual words. You are more than welcome to use the words, but they aren’t necessary. If you’re proud of something you did, and you’re about to talk about your accomplishments, make a point to not compare your accomplishments to another person—either in a positive and negative manner. Say you’re talking about a client goal. You want to serve a certain number of clients this month. When you’re talking about that goal and how good you feel about potentially accomplishing it, you have no reason to talk about someone else’s performance. Why pit yourself against another person and their goals? We often go to the deprecation strategy—



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either for ourselves or for someone else. Does that person have anything to do with your personal accomplishment? No. So don’t bring someone else down by lifting yourself up. At the same time, if you’re excited about your goal or accomplishment, you don’t need to bring up someone else’s to belittle yours. Here are examples of both, starting with the negative. Back to those client goals for the month: if you say, “No one even got close to how many clients I’ve gotten this month!” you’re belittling others to elevate yourself. What do they have to do with your success? Now the positive (ultimately negative) way of comparing: “Well, Kelly brought in more clients than me this month, so no big deal.” Why bother to bring up Kelly? I’m sure she’s nice and all, but what does her goal have to do with yours? Is she even there? Talking about other people when they aren’t in the room brings up a can of worms we’ll discuss in further detail later.



Celebrate Together to Build Your Team While it may seem like I’m going off the rails talking about celebrating, I bring it up because celebration is a key workplace conversation we should all have with our colleagues. Celebrating with others helps us not only learn to talk about our own accomplishments but also allows us to bond with our coworkers, so we may connect with them better for future conversations. While celebration might be a far cry from the norm of your office, you can start it simply by celebrating your own accomplishments. Talk about your accomplishments, don’t self-deprecate, don’t compare, don’t belittle someone else by talking about your accomplishments. And let other people talk about theirs while you are genuinely listening and excited for them. It’s incredibly powerful to listen to someone. By celebrating your accomplishments with your coworkers and celebrating theirs just as much, you eliminate the braggart part that everyone worries about, because you’re genuinely happy for other people. And they will be genuinely happy for you. We get the energy we put out. Sharing your accomplishments not only models successful behavior for everyone, it also inspires everyone. Sharing celebrations with your coworkers are great conversation moments and help foster team building. Now I’m not suggesting we should have a party for every success or take time out to tell everyone you an-



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swered an email. I just think we need to celebrate more often and get excited about accomplishments. When you’re thinking about how to share your accomplishments, think in specifics and tell a story. What happened? Why are you excited? Who cares? Keep those things in mind when you’re talking to a coworker. Remember not to compare, and keep it about you, not belittling someone else or even belittling yourself. Relationships, even professional ones, are all about the ups and downs. You have to share both the successes and the low points. Too often, conversations with coworkers can default to complaining. In improv conversations, the go-to is arguing. It’s r­ eally easy to argue. The problem with an argue-based moment is the loop you end up with. You said this, he said that, you think this, no I don’t, yes you do . . . ​all of the back and forth that happens in an argument is similar to the complaining route of coworkers. When you start complaining, you keep going down the route of complaining, and getting out of it needs a full stop. The balance is healthy. As difficult as it might be to share complaints and accomplishments, both make for a strong team. If you manage people, it’s crucial to celebrate their successes just as much as your own. A recent study from OC Tanner, an organization focused on engagement and culture in the workplace, shows that almost 80 percent of people who quit their jobs do so because of a lack of appreciation.6 In improv, we do something called world building where all of those gifts add to the who, where, what, and how, and build the world. If you manage or are part of a larger team, you have to make sure the world you’re creating is one that celebrates. By celebrating the success of your employees, you enhance the team connection. If someone feels their success contributes to a bigger picture of success, and they know you appreciate that and understand they contribute to those larger successes, they feel that sense of belonging. This culture can be built regardless of whether you manage people or are managed. Even the small gestures add to the greater feeling. Saying “Great job,” and “Thank you!” contribute to an appreciative work culture. What doesn’t work is thinking the “Thank you” is implied or that gratitude should be used to soften a blow of feedback. The latter is a qualifier. If you’re using positive feedback simply to soften criticism, you’re lessening both items by not being intentional. If you mean both and are inten-



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tional with both, it works. Both are critical to building a strong team in the office, and improv lends itself to strong teams. Team building is a natural side effect of improv. You see, improv in the office usually results in people doing an activity together for a common goal and often laughing together. Research by American neuroscientist Robert Provine states that “laughter is the quintessential human social signal. Laughter is about relationships.”7 While we have very specific relationships when we’re thinking about professional situations, they are still relationships. That human connection brings people closer together and lets them work together on a common goal, instead of working side by side on the same thing. A few years ago, we worked with a group of summer interns and their focus was team building. Our contact ­really wanted us to help the interns feel connected to the rest of the company. Sounds great, right? The problem: no one else from the company was there. It was only the summer interns. Don’t get me wrong—they definitely connected with each other. Improv for team building not only lets you see how other people work, but laughing together, celebrating, and having fun together is a great way to get to know one another better. They even took an activity back to the larger group and emailed me about it later, telling me how well it worked to get folks excited about accomplishments in the workplace. The activity is called Yes, Let’s!. It starts with the group either standing in a circle or in some way so they can all see one another. One person calls out, “Hey! Let’s [insert an activity]!” to which everyone in the group answers, “Yes, let’s!” and then starts doing it. It might sound like: Person A: Hey! Let’s yell as loud as we can! Group: Yes, let’s! (Everyone yells as loud as they can.) Person B: Hey! Let’s sneak around the room! Group: Yes, let’s! (Everyone sneaks around the room.) And so on and so forth. The reason the intern (Morgan) said it worked to celebrate? They all did a thing together, and because they got to let their guard down and



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play, they trusted one another. In 2011, Google conducted a study they monikered “Project Aristotle,” a play on the famous philosopher’s quote, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”8 This study indicated that the best teams—the most effective and highest performing ones had “high psychological safety.” These teams could to take a risk without worrying about embarrassment or punishments for their mistakes. Sounds a lot like improv, and sounds exactly like what happened with the interns. When they saw one another let their guards down, they connected to each other. When they all did the same thing together, they felt closer. When they felt closer, they trusted one another and worked better as a team, and they could celebrate with one another. TRY THIS



Tomorrow at work, tell someone you’re proud of something they did. Don’t pretend. Look at the things that have been accomplished in the last few months, and pick something you r­ eally are impressed with. Don’t say it just to say it. Mean it, and don’t qualify it. If you need a script, you can say: “Hey [name of person], I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you for doing [this thing].” If this feels weird, you can also say: “Hey [name of person], great job with [specific thing].” See what happens, and how they react. This helps you talk about accomplishments and pride, even if it



starts with someone other than you. Building a culture of celebration takes time, and this activity starts that journey.



W HAT H APPEN S WH EN NOTHING WORKS? You’re not pizza: not everyone will like you. I read that quote years ago, from a Post-It on a friend’s desk. I don’t know if it was the hot pink, the fun handwriting, the fact that pizza is the best, or the sheer honesty of that quote, but it’s stuck with me. So true,



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I N TERVI EWI NG OTHERS And folks who do the interviewing? All of the previous information is important, and remember, nowadays, people are also interviewing you. The information for the interviewer matters because you can very easily see if they put time into preparing for this interview. You can also practice empathy skills and pay attention if they are simply nervous or unprepared. It’s your place to make that space comfortable for an open conversation, as well as free of any sort of status and power dynamics you’re looking to put into place. The bit about people interviewing you: they are. A recent client who works with scalable businesses was interviewing people for a position with her, and this position essentially was her second in command. She was overworked and overextended. Like many new ventures, her company was greeted with so much excitement. With excitement comes so much work. She chatted with me about interviewing candidates and told me she found the perfect candidate but he turned it down. When she asked him why he turned it down, he said “Honestly, you were r­ eally disorganized.” Mic. Drop. Joking aside, she asked for real feedback and she got it. When she heard that, she knew she was projecting the feeling of overwhelm as desperation that was very real. She was overwhelmed and needed someone to work out, because she wasn’t getting her work done in the way she was used to. She thanked the candidate and went back into her work life and looked at how she could manage a few things before interviewing another candidate. When you are interviewing other people, it’s important to establish a system. Too much creativity is just as crippling as not enough. The seatof-your-pants manner of doing anything in a professional situation has the distinct possibility of massive failure. When you establish a system, you are thinking through what you want to know in the interview, all while assessing how you feel about the candidate and their answers, as well as the fit for the position. Well before the interviews, be sure you understand what the position looks like (you’re defining the role!), what kind of person might succeed in this position, what success looks like in the position, and what you want the position to accomplish in the larger part of the company and its culture.



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I often joke that some positions feel like warm-body positions, and it’s because no attention was paid to the potential “best” candidate. Any breathing person will do! We all know that isn’t generally true, but if you as the interviewer aren’t attending to what you want in this position (and interview), you won’t get what you want because it’s undefined. When thinking about what kind of person might succeed in this position, think of characteristics: Do they need to be an independent worker? Detail orientated? Customer focused? IT skills? Open to rolling up their sleeves and doing anything expected of them? Hyper-­ focused on one task? Flesh this out, and stay away from things that are either unattainable or too close-minded. If you get too focused on what you’re looking for, you’ll be disappointed by every person who walks in, because they will never be it. Disappointment often happens when people compare the new candidates to the last person in the position. If you had a stellar candidate in that position who left and you’re sore about it, think about what qualities they had that made them great for that position. That’s what you’re looking for in the interview. Once you have these ideas outlined, you are ready to interview candidates. This prep allows you time to pay attention in the moment to what they are saying. You’ve got the pieces; you’re looking for someone to connect them. If you haven’t interviewed people before (even if you have and you’re not thrilled about it), be sure to plan a few questions in advance. Yes, you can let the interview be more conversational. You find out a lot about a person in a conversation if you know what you’re looking for. If you have specific things you would like to know answers to, don’t be afraid to preselect questions you feel could accomplish your goal. You have a few kinds of questions to select from and a few that put your improv skills to the test. Icebreakers. For the love of all things, please don’t make this question awkward. Calling it an icebreaker, and using something like, “if your life could be a movie, what kind of movie would it be?”, or another question that might be more appropriate for a first or second date, usually is not the best question to lead with, especially if this is the first time you are meeting. Keep it simple, and always remember the point of interview questions: you’re not trying to trick or trap someone. You want to find



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more information. You’re seeking to get to know them in a professional manner, and with an icebreaker, you’re trying to make them feel comfortable. This isn’t time for you to share your creativity. You might be chuckling right now, thinking, “No one would ever ask what kind of movie represents their life.” And you would be wrong. I was working with a new graphic designer, and he ­really wanted to get an idea of an assistant’s personality. He had this question as part of his survey. After my initial shock, I asked him how his results were, and not surprisingly, they were not what he expected. Interviewees seemed to struggle with the question and their answers didn’t r­ eally help him figure out who to choose. They ended up talking more about movies than anything else, and while it was nice to get to know the person, that wasn’t the point of the question. Do not make the icebreaker question difficult for the responder. If they can’t figure out how to answer the question, or they can’t make the creative jumps to express themselves correctly, or worse, they get so caught up in it they can’t focus the rest of the time, you’ve done yourself a disservice when all you wanted to do was make the other person comfortable. Ask a simple icebreaker: Tell me about yourself. Traditional questions. Have a few of these in your back pocket. These are the questions that are expected in interviews. Pick out a few and ­really practice active listening with the candidate’s answers. Look for those gifts—the little bits of information you can easily grab on to and ask more questions about, or information that leads to a larger conversation. If you have these picked out in advance, you can spend time being present. Some of these are mentioned earlier in this chapter, a quick reminder of a few: Why do you want to work here? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Why should we want to work with you? Situational questions. These ask the interviewer to put themselves in a specific situation, and you get to see how they would react (in their own



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words) during these moments. The best way to use these kinds of questions are pulling from actual situations the candidate might be in. If they will not be customer facing, you’re wasting time asking them how they would deal with an angry customer. Again, prepping these in advance not only gives you time to think about real situations that might happen, but it also gives you the space to attend to their answer: Do they look uncomfortable? Does it seem like they’ve dealt with something like this before? Do you care if they have been in this situation many other times, or do you not mind if they’ve never dealt with something like this? In the end, you’re looking to see their thought process. Behavior-based questions. The difference between these and situational questions is simple. Behavior-based questions refer specifically to situations that have already happened, while situational questions tap into a possibility. These are the “tell me about a time . . .” questions that ask the interviewee to tap into past experiences. These are very important for observation: when you’re asking these questions, you’re asking the interviewee to recall situations that might mirror a situation in this new position. In the end, you’re making a judgment based on their retelling of a past situation. For what it’s worth to the position they are interviewing for, this is a good time to see how the candidate connects with information, gets it out in a clear and concise manner, and actually answers your question. Candidates may spin the information in a way that is beneficial to them (see humblebragging and pivoting) or answer around the question you’ve asked. Again, active listening comes into play. If something sounds a little off, ask a follow-up question for more information. Culture-fit questions. This segment of questions is one that you have to prepare for more than the candidate. Do you understand your culture? Is praise given regularly? Are you open communicators? Do you expect people to immediately reply to emails? Do you send texts in or out of the office to coworkers about work issues? This is an opportunity to see if the candidate is a good fit with the culture that you either already have or want to build. The critical factor is you. If you don’t understand the culture you have, then how can you judge



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someone based on their answer to a question that essentially doesn’t matter? Think of building a world in improv. Every little bit contributes to the whole, so think about what you want that whole to be. If you have a considerable amount of extroverts on the team and you’d like some quiet thinkers, consider that, and vice versa. Again though, you need to clearly define these aspects to either achieve or discard them. If they aren’t defined, you’ll be disappointed 100 percent of the time. Whether you are interviewing someone or being interviewed, your biggest advantage will come by preparing ahead of time and making a choice to actively listen to the person in front of you. If you start spacing out, work to snap back to focus.



Soft Skills Remember your soft skills. While I hate the term soft skills, I love what they are and how important they are to an effective work environment. Soft skills, at their core definition, are “personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.” Essentially they are people skills, specifically things like communication skills, critical thinking, leadership, positive attitude, teamwork and work ethic. So . . . ​skills that work improv techniques. While this might not necessarily sound like something every person will immediately say “oh, but of course!” to, the latest findings from the World Economic Forum predict that by 2020, soft skills that are crucial for the job will rise by a third.7 What does this mean for interviewers and interviewees? Well, aside from a clear need to develop these skills for interviewees, interviewers need to start to think clearly about what skills are necessary for a candidate to succeed, and what skills might be grown through learning and development initiatives on the job. Many of these skills aren’t immediately apparent when interviewing, which makes another argument for preparation. How can you show things like social skills, complex problem solving, processing skills, or cognitive abilities if you are worried about relaying your strengths and weaknesses in a clear and concise manner? For interviewers, how can you measure and attend to these not wholly apparent skills if you haven’t thought about your next question or the critical parts of your office culture? Prep for what you can; let yourself follow along for the ride once it starts.



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be a little nervous with the number of people there. They might start to size up the other people, not interested in introducing themselves to anyone and keeping to themselves. This is more than being introverted. Some people are simply shy. They keep to themselves in situations like this. This looks very different than the person who ruins their chances at the oneon-one. Introverts still listen and answer questions when they are asked. Being introverted doesn’t mean you’re going to lose the opportunity. Being a jerk means you’re going to lose the opportunity. The jerk behavior is simply defined as someone who lacks the people skills and empathy part of soft skills. Yes, this is absolutely between you and the other people in the room. Do you think the interviewer wants you to be cutthroat? Or insulting to the others? Interrupt them? Say they are wrong? Not address anyone else in the room, and talk as if you and the interviewer are the only people in the room? It might be better described as agenda-oriented and “selfish” behavior. This is the person who walks into an interview and is so focused on making themselves known, they don’t think about potential reasons for the group interview, or more often, the impression that selfish and agenda-oriented behavior gives off. A few years ago, with another company, I got to see the worst of this. It was a financial firm in New York City, and they hired between 10 and 20 people a month. Because they were hiring so aggressively, they clearly had group interviews to simply “weed people out.” It was an afternoon interview in the fall, and about six people were being interviewed at once. For this particular client, I would sit in the interview “holding” room and often pretend to be an interviewee. They would eliminate people who couldn’t work well as a team, which was a big part of company culture. My job was to speak when spoken to by the interviewer and answer questions in a benign manner. I would never be the best person there, and I would never be the worst. Before you start looking for a plant at your next interview, this isn’t something I did often and it’s usually not something a company can spend time on. This particular day, I got there first, got briefed on the candidates and sat down, typing away on my phone as people came in. Just about everyone was there and we were about to go into the other room for the actual interview, when the last candidate walked in. Since my job was to watch people for personality and soft skills, I can safely say I have never seen



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anyone walk in with so much arrogance. He came in, looked around, and said, “Oh, this should be easy.” We went into the room where he “pushed” his way to the front and selected the chair in the center. I tentatively say “push” because as the last person in, he probably should have been the last person down the hall. He managed to get to the front of the entire group to pick the chair he thought exuded the most power. When it came time for the actual interview, he interrupted people on four separate occasions, when he absolutely did not need to. When he spoke, he looked only at who he presumed to be the lead interviewer (there were three) and didn’t make eye contact with anyone else. I’ll give him credit, he was semi-listening to some of the people talking, but more to say things like, “I disagree with what they just said.” When the interview was over, he immediately got up, walked to the interviewers and proceeded to talk to that lead for about 10 minutes, oblivious to or because of the other interviewees in the room. When I came up to possibly save the people who were paying me, I was promptly dismissed with an, “Oh, we’re having a pretty serious conversation here, I don’t know if you’ll get it.” He did not get the position or a one-on-one interview. Worse, no one in the room did either. First, his behavior—he knew what he wanted. Great, A+ for task one. The problem he showed everyone was his lack of respect for anyone he deemed “unimportant.” This wasn’t an interview for a senior vice president position. And even if it were, it wouldn’t matter; the behavior was awful. This was an interview for an entry-level position at a huge financial firm. How would he treat his coworkers? People in other departments? He made his status very clear from the moment he walked into the room and confirmed it by the end. His interrupting during the interview, combined with his lack of eye contact—which, on top of being awkward, is extremely rude to the other interviewers in the room—confirmed his perceived status. At the end, I’m sure he thought he was showing “strength” and “leadership” by talking to the people he felt would influence the decision. The behavior he showed t­ oward me aside, his awareness was severely lacking, and all graciousness was lost long before that moment. While some companies may value skills like this—we do hear, “Oh, they are a great performer! Not r­eally a good team player though,” all too often—many companies don’t. Companies are evolving to invest in



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candidates that increase company culture. On top of that, when a person is that self-centered in their own importance, you have to wonder: is this just a step to another position, or is this person going to be around long enough for this all to be worth it? We know that people want to grow, and movement is crucial for growth. But few people like the interview process, so the last thing you want to project in an interview is the idea that you’ll be gone by the time you’ve gotten to know everyone’s name. I mentioned that none of the people in the room got a one-on-one interview. The dynamic that happened was uncomfortable, to say the least. I quietly watched as the other candidates shrunk because of his behavior. The first interruption took out a few people, who then started to answer questions in a tentative manner, looking around at other people for approval. By the time the interview was over, half the room left immediately. The other half awkwardly waited for their turn to thank the interviewers, but gave up after a short amount of time when they saw how long he was talking to the interviewers. While the interviewers saw the arrogance and rudeness of that particular candidate, they also saw what happened with the others. They let that behavior destroy their own answers and confidence, and in turn, all of their answers were short and not nearly as good as they would have been if they felt good about their own worth. What do you do in a situation like this? First, I can say this was an extreme example, as many of my examples are. I pick out the one in the dozens that make a point, so while he wasn’t the only arrogant interviewee I’ve seen, he was definitely the worst. You very well might see people who exhibit some of those qualities, and the best advice I have is what I’ve been saying all along: know yourself. Know yourself and your answers so well that nothing can throw you off, including some person who thinks they already have the job and this is just a fun HR routine. Keep your eyes on the prize, and the more you focus on that, the less some noise will throw you off. Let the energy happen around you and keep yours intact. If you give off the impression you no longer want to be there, the interviewers will feel that and apply it to you as a candidate, not to how you deal with difficult people. If you are constantly getting interrupted by another candidate, you have a few options. Patiently wait until they are done (or until they take a breath, or hit a punctuation mark) and then say something to



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the effect of, “Thank you for that. As I was saying . . .” and pick up where you left off if you didn’t finish your point. Be gracious, and take the focus back. You also can politely say, “I wasn’t finished talking, can you hold your thought for one moment?” That one is a bit harder to pull off without getting into an interrupting war. You don’t want to start going back and forth and struggling for power. If you make it known, politely, that you’re not finished talking (and hopefully when you are answering the questions you’re putting a button on the end of that story so people actually know you are done), a good interviewer should take the control back from the interrupter and return focus to you. As an interviewer, group interviews are a great time saver if you know what you’re looking for. Like every interview, preparation is incredibly important. Be sure you know what you’re looking for in a candidate before the interview. It’s almost even more important to prepare for a group interview, because of the number of personalities in the room. A big part of preparing for a group interview for the interviewer is understanding the different types of people who might be in the room. This isn’t to say you need to prepare for every single personality, but it is critical to be ready for several types. You have your personality all set, but how is that version going to interact with everyone else?



The Communication Styles There are four main communication styles: passive, aggressive, passiveaggressive, and assertive. We spend a lot of time with these four communication styles in our improv class. Each one of the styles is very distinctive and is shown both verbally and nonverbally. This is another added consideration for who you are in the room. When you’re planning your who, be sure to take note of these styles as well as your own. The passive style is often encompassed with indifference t­ oward decisions and consistently taking the passenger seat in conversations. In improv moments, passive persons often “Yes” instead of “Yes, and”—they go along with decisions that are made and won’t make additional decisions. Their indifference can lead to resentment: if you’re never making a decision and constantly going along with everyone else, sooner or later you’re going to do something that frustrates you or makes you uncomfortable. In conflict, they most likely defer to others or make accommodations to



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make the other person feel “better” to avoid a conflict. Finally, they often avoid eye contact and don’t stand in that “open” stance with their feet under their knees under their hips under their shoulders. They often make themselves small and take up less space. Passive communicators use phrases like “It doesn’t matter,” or “Whatever you think.” They might also use qualifiers to not offend the people they’re talking to. In improv conversations, black-and-white decisions make them very uncomfortable and they often have a hard time determining what they want. When they do determine what they want, or lead with it, they often end up deferring to the other person and their wants. The idea of taking focus and running with an idea can cripple a passive communicator. People usually like passive communicators because they are easy to get along with. The passive communicator can feel like a doormat. The aggressive style of communication is also very apparent. Aggressive communicators are clear with their style. They rarely care about the needs and wants of others and are very driven with their own needs and wants. It’s a style of communication you can hear, see, and often feel. Aggressive communicators often speak in a loud voice and use influencers like intimidation, criticism, threats, and blame to get what they want. They usually lack active listening skills (listening skills as a whole), interrupt, and speak with a demanding voice. Aggressive communicators also tend to be seen as leaders, which is what often makes them so dangerous. In EE’s experience, these tend to be the people for whom we go in for empathy training. They are very, very good at taking action and making things happen—sometimes at the expense of other people. When something doesn’t work out in their favor, blame is always on another person. In improv moments, these folks make the decisions and push the decisions. They won’t often “Yes, and” a situation. They are usually waiting for someone to “Yes, and” them. Often the driver in a conversation, they fight for what they want and make those black-and-white choices. The examples earlier in the book of people not listening, specifically those who miss the gifts dropped by other people and often to the determent of the conversation, illustrate this type of communication. Eye contact is often intense and used more as an intimidation technique rather than a communication technique.



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Zop from Chapter 4? You stand in a circle, one person points to another and says Zip, that person looks at another and says Zap, that person looks at another and says Zop, and the game begins again. When one person makes a mistake, everyone makes that mistake, puts their hands on their hips and says, “AaahhhOOOgah” while doing a hip thrust. Failure becomes funny. You’re practicing failure and training yourself to accept that yes, you fail, and not only is it not as bad as you think, it’s always OK. This is true in all of improv as well as in taking initiative. You might not have something ready but you have enough to move forward and figure it out while you are listening and responding. While you’re listening and responding, think: Did anyone question your worth? No? Then you probably are proving it. Yes, someone is asking? Like, literally asking for your receipts? What does it look like? Why are they asking you to prove your worth? Is it real, or something you are imagining? What is true and provable in this moment? This takes time and effort. Remaining present with yourself isn’t easy. Ask what is real. What do you know to be true about your abilities and worth? Are you questioning or is someone else? If this is hard, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Think of all the people who suffer from imposter syndrome. According to a 2011 article from the International Journal of Behavioral Science, some 70 percent of people suffer from imposter syndrome.2 Ask three people in the next day if they have ever felt like a fraud, or if their successes are simply luck. The unfortunate truth is that many of us feel this way, and often that’s what makes advocating for ourselves professionally difficult at the very least. Sure, talking about your business, idea, or personal accomplishments might be easy if you stick to the facts and present them in an unbiased manner, but you are much, much more than that. Furthermore, when you are pitching a business idea or yourself, you need to have the confidence that you’re the best person for whatever you’re pitching. If you don’t believe that, why should anyone else? Confidence is one of those funny side effects of improv, mainly because you can’t necessarily pinpoint specific activities that help with confidence. Yet at the same time, I can say without hesitation that they all help. The secret sauce once again? “Yes, and.” When I’m talking about improv, there are so many times I bring everything back to “Yes, and.” It’s one of those lessons that I ­really believe is a game changer. Since you already know “Yes, and” is great for conversation (affirm and equalize) and ideation (affirm and elevate), as well as listening (recap and confirmation),



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you already know how it can easily be brought into all areas of your life— not limited to professional. Confidence in professional life often comes from understanding that you can indeed handle whatever comes along. You are prepared for anything and you can roll with whatever the world and work throw at you. Those blips? Simply that—a blip that you deal with.



Building Confidence with the Power of “Yes, And” When you have confidence in your own abilities to handle anything that happens or could happen, no matter how unexpected it might be, you start simply absorbing and reacting to all of the other stuff around you as part of life. Remember the yes in “Yes, and” isn’t agreeing. It’s affirming a reality. If you start to yes to the reality around you and affirm that “Yes, this is all happening and I have to deal with it,” things simply become a small part of the larger picture of your life. Also, when you are attending to things happening around you, you can incorporate them into your life instead of fighting it, pretending it’s not happening, or worse, resenting that this is “always happening” to you. We have quite a few clients who are small business owners. It’s interesting to see the ones who take things in stride and incorporate bumps into their every day, and those who build resentment when things aren’t happening in the specific way they planned. It shows up in improv conversations, and those conversations are indicative of how they are in life. One workshop for start-up founders brought a group of people together that were all starting new businesses with grant monies. Each business idea was their own, and each of them was part of the cohort that was supposed to launch at the same time. We taught a few improv for confidence classes and got to know quite a few of the founders through our partnership with the organization. Some of them r­eally wanted the polish for their public speaking: they believed that if they presented well enough, they would be completely fine in securing more funds for their business. Others wanted to develop presence and confidence—they felt like they were fine presenters, and knew they wanted to r­eally do well with how they walked into a room and worked the people in the room. Both are correct, r­eally. To be a confident speaker—and not an arrogant speaker—you need to constantly have your finger on the pulse of



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your audience. Yes, the polish is incredibly important. It’s also the secret sauce that some people think can’t be taught. We discussed ­really digging into what made someone confident when they were pitching their ideas and business, and how was it different from someone who thought their business was unshakable. No one wanted to seem cocky, but at the same time, the balance between the two is difficult for many people to understand. One of the things that came up consistently was the acceptance that it could fail—someone could make a bigger and faster version of it. The reason why it wouldn’t? Because of the person behind it and the work they themselves were putting into it. They discussed that attending to reality and everything that goes with it, like competition, market, cost, and more, made their business stronger. They were planning on hitting reality head-on, taking it in, digesting it, and using it. That awareness is developed by the “Yes,” and dealing with it is the “and.” The sneaky side effect of applying “Yes, and” to the world around you? You start to “Yes, and” your own ideas, thoughts, concerns, and dreams. When is the last time you were around a table discussing something you had a stake in, and you got a glimmer of an idea of what to say that was very much yours? And instead of saying it and owning it, you shut it down and let the moment pass only to have the reaction of, “I wish I would have said that!” Or worse, someone else says the exact same thing and at this point, you have nothing to add. By using “Yes, and” to your own thoughts, even if you start in your head, you will notice you’ve probably put limits on ideas and inspiration.



TRY THIS



Come up with an idea for a new thing. Take your object from the last activity, and your job is to “Yes, and” yourself for this new idea, becoming more and more creative with each thought. For example, if your object was a tube of ChapStick, you might say: I’m going to come up with a new ChapStick. Yes, and this ChapStick won’t dry out your lips. Yes, and it won’t be waxy.



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Yes, and it won’t melt in your pocket. Yes, and it will be available in all sorts of flavors. Yes, and you can get your daily dose of coffee in the ChapStick. Remember: with “Yes, and” you aren’t worrying about being right or coming up with something that won’t fail. You’re working on creativity! This helps explore the creative possibilities using “Yes, and.”



Brainstorming becomes harder and harder as we settle into “adult.” This activity gives you a tool to ideate.



“Yes, and” makes you think about what the possibilities beyond your original idea could be—you are yes-ing the possibility. You are saying there is a possibility and chance it could happen, and it’s a path. One of the guys in my start-up group I mentioned earlier had the idea of a brunch food truck. So we discussed late-night food, specifically bar food, as well as straight breakfast. Then we selected one alternative possibility: brunch and late-night food on the weekends at bar time. After that decision, we thought about being at the same location in the morning for brunch and pairing with the bar for a brunch drink special, as well as in the evening for patrons who needed to grab some late-night food. Then what if he also had a deal with the bar where if they brought a receipt from the bar, they could get a brunch upgrade from the truck for free—which would make the bar more than happy to promote the truck because it was a win-win. Nowhere in this scenario did we start to think, “Well, what if the bar doesn’t want the truck outside?” or “What if the bar already serves food, wouldn’t they think that’s competition?” or “Am I even good enough to make this crazy idea happen?” None of those issues, or ­really any of the issues that come up with a lack of confidence in your own abilities or the ugly imposter syndrome voice, have any place in “Yes, and.” That’s not to say you won’t deal with problems or that nasty self-doubt if you start to “Yes, and” things—you’ll still have issues, no matter what! If you use those issues when you’re using “Yes, and” to some creativity within yourself, you



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stop the idea much like you stop a conversation with the word but. You don’t need it right now, so don’t use it or bring it out. Often, I have to tell small business owners to rein it in. When we say this, it is not to limit the “Yes, and”—it’s to focus it, like a beam of light. If you have some highly dispersed light, sure you’ll light everything just a little bit. If you have a focused beam, you shine all the light on a specific point. Same for business: if you have 10 ideas and are trying to “Yes, and” all of them, you’ll have 10 wildly creative paths you could follow. Take one idea and “Yes, and” that idea first—then finesse it, go back, recalibrate it, and “Yes, and” it again. If that idea doesn’t work, then your job is to “Yes, and” another one of your points. By focusing your light on one thing when you’re opening up a possibility, you build a sustainable structure for your business. And there’s less possibility for you to get overwhelmed—if you’re not overwhelmed by options, you can monitor the imposter syndrome and handle it with that focus. On the same token, if you start to “Yes, and” yourself often, both in professional ideas and in settings where you are offering ideas, you make speaking up a regular thing. The more you speak up, the more you’re either going to get told “Brilliant!” or get ignored because someone won’t like your idea—or almost always the more likely response, something in between the two. The more you experience all of those things, the easier speaking up will be. You’re lowering your bar for speaking up. It quickly becomes a very normal thing; so you do it, embracing each outcome as the norm. If the outcome is good, you digest it instead of basking in it, and simply deal with it. If it’s negative, you digest it instead of basking in it, and simply deal with it. It no longer becomes a big deal. It’s simply part of a normal day. Now when your imposter syndrome acts up, you can shut it down with a simple, “Well, sometimes people don’t like ideas, but yesterday they did, so maybe tomorrow, someone else will again.” There’s more empirical data to draw from to shut that negative voice down. Yet another win with “Yes, and” comes with being in the moment. You absolutely cannot be thinking 10 steps ahead when you are actively using “Yes, and.” If you are constantly overthinking everything you say, you cannot “Yes, and.” “Yes, and” keeps you connected to your thoughts— and you own each and every one of them. Sounds a lot like assertive communication as well, doesn’t it? You’re taking little steps to become



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